Is Attribute Bloat real?

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by Kirk

If a character manages to avoid permanent injury or death, a typical lifespan may be enough to reach this bloat you speak of.

...

So most would acknowledge that TFT works for characters to 50 points, and then begins to breakdown because of the 3 die roll and attribute system.

I am comfortable with that. If someone wants to design a system that handles superheroes from 50 points and up, effectively quantum TFT, that's fine, too. But I don't think we should try to screw on a system as such to the existing Newtonian one, it almost assuredly won't work, and will only destroy what we attempt to "fix".

Hi Kirk.
Several people have pointed out that it starts to become a problem before 50 attributes, so I take issue with the 'most would acknowledge' phrase.

And many of the suggestions which we have suggested are hardly extreme. I've suggested that a flat 50 experience points are given for making a job roll, and I've suggested that talents that give DX bonuses give some other sort of bonus. Another good suggestion was dumping the attribute adder magic items.

(For $24,000 you can get a +3 attribute adder for all of ST, DX and IQ. Even if we pretend that attribute bloat is a non issue until 50 attributes, then people hit your limit at 41 attributes, with those items. For $48,000 we hit your 50 attribute limit at 38 attributes.)

I have suggested that A) Steve Jackson realizes that there is a problem, and B) he makes some small changes to reduce it.

I know he won't make big changes. He has said as much.

It is rather academic to me, as my superscript rules fix the problem. I expect that people could have playable characters with 60+ attributes with my rules (not that anyone has ever got close to that level). However, I want the new TFT to succeed.

And finally, it is hardly 'quantum physics TFT' to dump attribute adders, eliminate DX bonus talents and reduce the experience from job rolls. I find it strange that such small improvements to TFT consistently raise such dire arguments.

Someone said that TFT has had 3.5 decades of play testing. Shouldn't we use at least SOME of that wisdom?

Warm regards, Rick.